Apple to Announce new Mac OS X version in June

swiert writes "Apple has announced that the WWDC conference has been rescheduled in order to present the new version of Mac OS X, codenamed "Panther". Unfortunately, Apple haven't given any details about what to expect from Panther, but after Jaguar this looks promising."

Comments

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[red5]

Well according to apple the new upgrade system will be one free, one paid. As OS 10, OS 10.1, and 10.2 were.

Re:While you're at it

[ocelotbob]

Actually, both are correct, depending on the part of the world you're in. The article submitter is probably British, where one refers to company actions in the plural, even when the company's name is in the singular form.

Re:64 bit OS?

[dethl]

Funny thing about the PPC 970 is that it can handle 32-bit as well as 64-bit instructions. Panther would probably just add 64-bit support, rather than become a total 64-bit OS.

Re:Pather = Jaguar

[cosmo7]

Panthers are black (melanistic) leopards. the gene for melanism is recessive, so black leopards can have offspring with lighter coats. Jaguars are heavier than panthers. The panther has a narrower and smaller head. Genetically, leopards and jaguars are more closely related than lions or tigers. Snow leopards and Clouded leopards are even more distantly related, at one clade each.

Bullshit

[Lethyos]

Microsoft did not give out copies of Windows XP to people who bought computers with Windows 98.

Not that I am in favor of proprietary software, but this is no way compares to the upgrade path for OS X.

Windows9x and NT are two completely different operating systems. I can see Microsoft marketing them as two different products and hence, owning one does not mean you get the other. However, paying to upgrade Windows95 to Windows98 is an absolutely asinine thing to do. That upgrade is essentially a set of system updates an a free web browser. In fact, one could upgrade Windows95 to Windows98 for free -- download the latest Internet Explorer and let it do shell integration. You got the kernel enhancements, a more threaded Explorer, and all that.

Going from Mac OS X 10.n to 10.n + 1 should cost nothing for someone who already owns 10.n. It is an incremental upgrade. Yes, 10.2 includes some very hot technologies (Quartz Extreme, for instance), but it is really only a marginal upgrade over the previous version. It is something the user should have received with previous versions, nothing radically new or improved.

Minor version upgrades have traditionally been something the user should have gotten with the previous release. They make a product you already own more complete. Charging for them is robery. Major releases, on the contrary, are typical radical advances in the software, such that it is largely dissimilar from previous major releases. MacOS 9 versus MacOS X is an example of this -- that's a worthwhile purchase.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[aberkvam]

Well according to apple the new upgrade system will be one free, one paid. As OS 10, OS 10.1, and 10.2 were.

Actually, Apple has been alternating the paid/free versions of its OS for quite some time now.

7.5 - Paid
7.6 - Paid
8.0 - Paid
8.1 - Free
8.5 - Paid
8.6 - Free
9.0 - Paid
9.1 - Free
9.2 - Free
10.0 - Paid
10.1 - Free
10.2 - Paid

It hasn't always been an exact alternating of paid and free updates, but it's been pretty close for a long time. So if you want to go by history, the next update will be free.

On the other hand, I think the really telling bit of information would be Apple's financials after the Jaguar release. If the money gained from charging $129 for an OS update had a significant positive effect on Apple's bottom line, I would think that Apple would be looking long and hard at charging for Panther.

One thing that has always puzzled me. Why didn't they just call it OS X 10.5 instead of OS X 10.2. People complained because it was just a .1 update, which Apple has rarely charged for. I think simply calling it 10.5 would have placated a lot of people.

Re:Forced Upgrade?

[aberkvam]

Business Week interviewed Phil Schiller almost a year ago. His comments are rather interesting and point to Panther being a paid upgrade. Here's the relevant part of the interview:

Q: People are asking why you're charging so much for Jaguar, the new OS X update.
A: We came out with OS X 10.0 in May, 2001, at $129. That's our usual price for paid upgrades. Last fall, we came out with 10.1 Normally, we would decide to charge $129, but because we wanted to help the adoption of OS X, we made it free to our customers. Now, with 10.2, it's $129 again, same as it always has been. I think a year and a half before charging for an upgrade is very reasonable. And we included 150 new features in Jaguar. That's a lot for your money.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?
A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

Re:10.3 features (from loop rumors.com)

[sheriff_p]

Still, H.323 support (or support for whatever its heir apparent is) within the OS is SORELY lacking, according to my videoconferencing friends, so I know they'll gleefully welcome this.

Yahoo Messenger for Mac OS X provides video-conferencing, and fairly well too - it works over NAT too, which is something I believe H.323 doesn't natively support.

So far, it's the only decent system I've found. It's free, it's cross-platform, and I like it a lot :-)